


Absent of Furniture

by catatonic1242



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fluff, Domestic, Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Sam Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 13:09:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catatonic1242/pseuds/catatonic1242
Summary: Post-13.23. After Dean recovers from his time with Michael, he buys a couch.





	Absent of Furniture

**Author's Note:**

> _”Real journeys are absent of furniture.”_ \- Craig D. Lounsbrough
> 
> Inspired by [this post](http://natmoose.tumblr.com/post/177373045276/i-want-the-winchesters-to-get-a-sofa-for-the-sole), I wrote this to prove that I _can_ write fluff.
> 
> This is fluff, right?
> 
> Find me on [tumblr.](https://catatonic1242.tumblr.com)

It was really freaking hard to get the sofa into the Dean Cave.

For a long time, Dean was perfectly content with the recliners, those old, ratty things he scored for $20 bucks each at a rummage sale. In fairness, Dean actually paid $200 for the pair - $40 for the chairs and $160 to borrow a trailer and hitch from the crazy old bat who was running the sale.

And they’d been fine, the recliners, serving their purpose comfortably. More often than not, Dean was alone in his Cave anyway, watching Netflix while Sam did dorky Sam-type-things in the library. Every once in a while, Cas would drop by, but he never stayed for long - there was a rift to open, Lucifer to stop, Jack to rescue. There was never a need for more than two seats in the Cave.

Until after Michael.

It was a long road to recovery for Dean. Michael made a mess of his head, and for the first two months, Dean spent most of his time in bed. As he tried to adjust to reality, untangling the web of confusion inside his own mind, the others sat with him. It was always one at a time - too many people was too much for Dean, so Sam would take a shift sitting in the armchair by the door, and when he got tired, Cas would take over.

At first, Dean was silent, slipping in and out of consciousness like some fevered dream. But one of them was always there when he woke up screaming, his hands clenched so tight that they cramped.

It took time, and patience, but eventually Dean was able to stay awake for more than ten minutes at once. In those moments, he would ask questions.

“Did I…”

“How could…”

“Why did…”

Sam would always answer with the same frustrating platitudes, phrases meant to be reassuring that were actually maddening:

“It wasn’t you.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“It’s gonna be okay.”

But Cas, Cas would tell Dean the truth:

“Yes, that happened.”

“He couldn’t be stopped.”

“I don’t know.”

The longer Dean stayed awake, he realized, the more Cas would talk to him, and the more they talked, the further away from Michael the conversations got, until they were talking about everything and nothing at all. And so Dean fought against sleep, every day winning five or ten or thirty more minutes, until finally he didn’t feel like a warm corpse. Until finally he could get out of bed, shower and make his way into the kitchen for breakfast.

Of course, he was exhausted by the time he got to the kitchen table, but the change of scenery was nice.

A few days after that, Cas suggested that Dean decamp to his Cave. And so he did, taking a place in what he thought of as _his_ recliner while Sam and Cas continued to rotate in and out of the other. He would watch soap operas and talk shows and game shows. He was too exhausted, had been through too much to be embarrassed by something as dumb as his taste in tacky television anymore, so when Cas asked, Dean would explain who each Bravo housewife was and why they hated the others. And Cas would sit, riveted, hanging on Dean’s every word, as if why Bethenny hated Dina was actually important to the world.

Dean dozed off a lot, still, sometimes in the middle of sentences, even. But when he woke up, there was always someone there. If it was Sam, he’d duck his head sheepishly and hand the remote back to Dean, who would immediately flip away from whatever documentary Sam had been watching. But if it was Cas, the channel wouldn’t have changed - he’d still be watching, waiting patiently.

Eventually, Dean started to really get his strength back. The nightmares all but stopped, and there were whole days that he could get through without napping. He even started putting on real clothes, rather than dragging himself around in the same tattered grey sweatpants day after day. Dean went down to their gun range and put in many hours, working to regain his strength and accuracy. He would go for long walks with Sam where they’d amble around in amiable silence until sweat soaked his shirt.

And Dean would spar with Cas, testing his own reaction time. One day, Cas, who always held back during their sessions, finally landed a hard blow to Dean’s rib cage. Dean doubled over, breathing hard, and when Cas rushed to apologize, Dean surprised him with a move of his own, sweeping Cas’s feet out from under him. Cas landed hard on his back, and after a few seconds of startled silence, they’d both started laughing.

That was when Dean knew he was back to normal. It was also when he realized he didn’t want to be back to _normal_.

So Dean went shopping. Just slipped out from underneath the watchful eyes of Sam and Cas one morning while they were both in the kitchen, talking about his recovery in hushed tones, the way they always did. He drove out to the nearest furniture store, a tiny little place in Smith Center. They didn’t have the biggest selection, but there was a soft grey number that would work. It was more of a loveseat, really, but it was comfortable, with cushions that he could sink into and generously padded armrests.

When Dean came back to the store an hour later with the U-Haul he’d rented for the day, the guys in the back room helped him load up the couch. By the time he got home to Lebanon, he only had two dozen texts and six missed phone calls. He called Sam from the garage.

“Dean, what the hell? Where are you? Are you okay?” Sam said by way of greeting.

“I’m in the garage,” Dean answered.

Sam shook his head when he saw the sofa, but he didn’t ask and Dean didn’t have to explain.

Even though it was on the smaller side, it was a bitch to get the thing into the bunker and past the many right angled turns of its hallways. And it was a frustratingly tight fit, getting it through the door to the Dean Cave. Dean pulled and Sam pushed, trying to squeeze the sofa into the room. It took twenty minutes, during which Dean joked about breaking out the lube more than once.

Once it was finally in, Dean moved one recliner to the back of the room, against the wall, and angled the other just a bit further away from the TV. That allowed the couch to slide comfortably into place. While Sam plopped himself into the closest chair with a tired sigh, Dean stood back proudly, crossing his arms and surveying their work.

Just then, Cas appeared in the doorway. “This is where you went? To buy a… couch?” he asked.

“Hell yeah,” Dean answered, flopping down on the side closest to the TV. He patted the empty space next to him. “Try it out,” he said.

Cas walked over and sat, somewhat tentatively.

“Eh? Eh?” Dean asked, wiggling himself back and forth. “Comfortable, right?”

“Why did you buy a couch?” Cas asked.

Dean heard Sam chortle a few feet away.

Dean didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for the remote and flipped on the television.

The three of them bickered about what to watch for a few minutes before finally settling on a showing of Forrest Gump. Dean watched intently, occasionally explaining things to Cas, until he felt his eyelids getting heavy.

When he woke up, Dean found himself tucked against Cas’s shoulder, the two of them alone together in the room. Cas’s arm was draped over him, his hand hanging loosely near Dean’s hip.

“I don’t know if we each have a destiny,” Tom Hanks was saying, “or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze. But I think maybe it’s both.”

As the credits rolled, Cas looked down at him. “I understand.”

“Hmmm?” Dean asked.

“Why you bought a couch. I understand.”

Yeah, it was really hard to get the sofa into the Dean Cave.

But totally worth it.


End file.
